‘The exhibition visually highlights the range and passion of an artist who, in depicting the activities of her daily life, unknowingly documented one of the most significant times in history for Louisiana’s African American communities. The exhibit includes some never-before-seen paintings, as well as quilts, glass bottles, and the artist’s palette on loan from the Louisiana Art and Science Museum, Louisiana State Library, Louisiana State Museum, and Tom Whitehead’s personal collection.’ From the book’s press release:Clementine Hunter (1887–1988) painted every day from the 1930s until several days before her death at age 101. As a cook and domestic servant at Louisiana’s Melrose Plantation, she painted on hundreds of objects available around her — glass snuff bottles, discarded roofing shingles, ironing boards—as well as on canvas. She produced between five and ten thousand paintings, including her most ambitious work, the African House Murals. Scenes of cotton planting and harvesting, washdays, weddings, baptisms, funerals, Saturday night revelry, and zinnias depict her experiences of everyday plantation life. More than a personal record of Hunter’s life, her paintings also reflect the social, material, and cultural aspects of the area’s larger African American community.

—Double-horseshoe bars at Camellia Grill in the Quarter (breakfast items like pancakes and waffles are the best choices), and fun waiters for my boys to joke with:

The State Fire Marshal’s Office has declared ‘The Treehouse’ in Crossville, Tennessee an ‘imminent safety hazard’ and its been closed. At eight stories tall, it’s thought to be the world’s largest treehouse and so many people see it as an amazing art environment; it’s the work of a minister who also happens to be a landscape architect. There’s a chapel inside, and over 1000 people visit each week.

The gentleman who built it told USA Today in 2007:“I built it for everybody. It’s G-d’s treehouse. He keeps watch over it,” said Burgess, who received his inspiration in a vision that came to him in 1993. “I was praying one day, and the L-rd said, ‘If you build me a treehouse, I’ll see you never run out of material.”‘

Though an ordained minister, Burgess is more of a self-proclaimed pastor in the woods. “There’s people that G-d sends me that church houses wouldn’t even let in,” he said.

—Maude Schuyler Clay talks about Eudora Welty in this post at Lemuria, but my favorite part was thinking of her riding around in Bill Eggleston’s ’62 Bonneville (he’s Maude’s cousin) ‘in the late afternoon light of Memphis and environs, taking pictures with Bill while listening to Bach on a reel to reel tape recorder he somehow hooked up through the car radio’.

—At Tujague’s, they do a prix fixe (or Table d’hôte, whichever way of looking at it you prefer) menu — so the waiter comes to the table, explains the choices and courses for the evening, and you…to be easy, imagine that in general you’re set to receive an appetizer, salad/soup course (these may be broken out into both a salad and a soup course), entree, and dessert…and from each of those categories you can choose from two or three or four options — at a (mostly) set price. ‘Mostly’ because occasionally there will be one entree with a cost that exceeds the others.

This is how the restaurant describes it:Tujague’s six course, table d’hote menu is built around such staples as savory Shrimp Remoulade and Tujague’s own traditional beef brisket with Creole sauce — a piquant remoulade sauce flavoring spicy cold shrimp and succulent chunks of beef brisket boiled with aromatic vegetables served with horseradish sauce topped off with warm bread.We offer Filet Mignon, 2 Fresh seafood, and a fourth non-seafood entree daily.It’s nice to be in a restaurant that’s been in business over 150 years, and I’m glad we went finally, but there are better choices here.

—Ruby C. Williams, still selling her art at her fruit stand, will be honored with a reception at the Plant City library, where her work is on exhibit.

—From the press release:Gray’s Auctioneers will sell more than 800 works from the self-taught, Cleveland-based artist, the Rev. Albert Wagner (1924-2006) on Thursday, Sept. 20, beginning at 11 a.m. EDT. Gray’s 60th auction will consist solely of this artist’s vast and emotive collection of vibrant paintings and unique sculptures.

LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.

The wide range of work presented in the sale portrays the reverend’s colorful life story along with his unique perspective on the world around him.

Born in the Deep South, Wagner came to Cleveland as an ambitious young man in search of opportunity. Despite his success as an entrepreneur and family man, Wagner’s life took a wayward path as he succumbed to infidelity, alcoholism, drug use and eventually, crime. In jeopardy of losing his livelihood and damaging his familial relationships, on the eve of his 50th birthday Wagner experienced a spiritual revelation through art. He gave up his destructive habits and became ordained as a Christian minister, henceforth creating art as the Rev. Albert Wagner.